My friend, Walter, was a tenured professor in a wellknown university on the US east coast. He was generally popular and had written a few books that were well regarded. His wife had died five years ago; he had no children. In his sixties, he quit his job, moved to the west coast, took a part-time editing job and started painting. He told me he took lessons in the morning and painted the rest of the day.
He did it for several years, but had no success in selling his paintings. Since he had run down his savings, he started driving for a taxi company. From what I have heard, he continued to paint to his last days, though he had no marketing success.
Oscar Wilde talks of the two tragedies of life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
Do you know what you want? You feel quite sure that you want the sporty BMW you salivated over last week when you colleague drove over in it. Or the house six streets down that stands out like a special gem among the decent houses in a decent neighborhood. You feel certain that you want these things and they can add a lot to the quality of your life.
But think for a second about the two-story house you live in now that you craved for when you were living in a starter house some years ago. Or the Volvo you drive these days, which roared in your dreams for some years when you were going about in the used Fiat you had bought from your cousin. They seemed the end-point of your dreams, object of irresistible yearning, that would keep you content for the rest of your life. But they didn’t.
For most people, nothing ever does. The Volvo or two-story house, for which you would have given an arm or a leg, and which excited you when you first had them, has long ceased to be a source for excitement or even a cause of moderate satisfaction. What went wrong? Was there something wrong with the car or the house? Had you miscalculated that those things had qualities to please you?
Perhaps there were a few things not superlative with the house, an old-fashioned bathroom and a somewhat modest kitchen. Maybe the car did not have built-in GPS or a high-quality stereo output? Were these the reasons for your steady disenchantment? You know well that is not so.
Your tastes or standards were different. Whatever you fancied then would have faded by now. They would have dropped eventually in your esteem no matter what you had chosen. House styles change, car fashions ebb and flow, what is a model today becomes modal and common tomorrow. It did not matter what you chose. What mattered was that you had chosen it yesteryear, and now it is another time.
Oscar Wilde talks of the two tragedies of life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
Do you know what you want? You feel quite sure that you want the sporty BMW you salivated over last week when you colleague drove over in it. Or the house six streets down that stands out like a special gem among the decent houses in a decent neighborhood. You feel certain that you want these things and they can add a lot to the quality of your life.
But think for a second about the two-story house you live in now that you craved for when you were living in a starter house some years ago. Or the Volvo you drive these days, which roared in your dreams for some years when you were going about in the used Fiat you had bought from your cousin. They seemed the end-point of your dreams, object of irresistible yearning, that would keep you content for the rest of your life. But they didn’t.
For most people, nothing ever does. The Volvo or two-story house, for which you would have given an arm or a leg, and which excited you when you first had them, has long ceased to be a source for excitement or even a cause of moderate satisfaction. What went wrong? Was there something wrong with the car or the house? Had you miscalculated that those things had qualities to please you?
Perhaps there were a few things not superlative with the house, an old-fashioned bathroom and a somewhat modest kitchen. Maybe the car did not have built-in GPS or a high-quality stereo output? Were these the reasons for your steady disenchantment? You know well that is not so.
Your tastes or standards were different. Whatever you fancied then would have faded by now. They would have dropped eventually in your esteem no matter what you had chosen. House styles change, car fashions ebb and flow, what is a model today becomes modal and common tomorrow. It did not matter what you chose. What mattered was that you had chosen it yesteryear, and now it is another time.
Is it then just a matter of changing tastes? We know that tastes will change if we are talking of cars and houses. Those are precisely the things where styles change quickly, from one year to the next, things swiftly become passé. If we switch our interests to less ephemeral things, crave for nobler things, such as religion or learning, perhaps our desires will change less drastically.
I am not so sure. The ardently pious seem to lose their faith as often as the skeptics take to religion. Heaven knows what stirs their doubts or devotion. Professors and scholars have been known to lose their interest in the life theoretic and give up on books and research. They take to pleasures of the flesh or of the bottle or move to Wall Street or Fleet Street.
The truth is we change. What we want, eagerly and earnestly, changes. We may be disappointed, even mortified, when we don’t get what we want. In the vast majority of cases, we overcome our disappointment and find joy in something else. For some, however, the loss may be more traumatic and may merit the name of tragedy.
On the other hand, we may be ecstatic to get what we want. In time, often too soon, the ecstasy fades. There is sometimes the painful realization that that is not something we really wanted or cared for. For the fortunate there is the prospect of further change. For the less fortunate, there may be the prospect of living in an unhappy acceptance of the unacceptable.
Are the twin tragedies Wilde mentioned then quite inevitable? Wilde’s neat trick was to call them tragedies. It is no tragedy that I no longer wear the swaddling clothes I was wrapped in as a baby. Nor the corduroys and pointed shoes that were the style when I was a student. I have just grown and changed. On the way I have learned a few things and become perhaps a little better. What I have shed, my clothes or my earlier selves, I have done to aspire for some small measure of excellence. Hardly a tragedy.
I am not so sure. The ardently pious seem to lose their faith as often as the skeptics take to religion. Heaven knows what stirs their doubts or devotion. Professors and scholars have been known to lose their interest in the life theoretic and give up on books and research. They take to pleasures of the flesh or of the bottle or move to Wall Street or Fleet Street.
The truth is we change. What we want, eagerly and earnestly, changes. We may be disappointed, even mortified, when we don’t get what we want. In the vast majority of cases, we overcome our disappointment and find joy in something else. For some, however, the loss may be more traumatic and may merit the name of tragedy.
On the other hand, we may be ecstatic to get what we want. In time, often too soon, the ecstasy fades. There is sometimes the painful realization that that is not something we really wanted or cared for. For the fortunate there is the prospect of further change. For the less fortunate, there may be the prospect of living in an unhappy acceptance of the unacceptable.
Are the twin tragedies Wilde mentioned then quite inevitable? Wilde’s neat trick was to call them tragedies. It is no tragedy that I no longer wear the swaddling clothes I was wrapped in as a baby. Nor the corduroys and pointed shoes that were the style when I was a student. I have just grown and changed. On the way I have learned a few things and become perhaps a little better. What I have shed, my clothes or my earlier selves, I have done to aspire for some small measure of excellence. Hardly a tragedy.
I have no idea how well Walter painted. But paint he wanted to do, and did. He was no Picasso and did not achieve fame and wealth in his lifetime. He was no Gaugin either and did not achieve fame after his lifetime. As a friend, I would have wished him the recognition that eluded him. As a human being as much as a friend, I am glad he did what he wanted to do: paint.
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